Mickey Mouse is now playable in a video game! Which is to say, the public domain version of Mickey Mouse just got added to a game.
So on January 1, 2024, several creative works entered the public domain. The most prominent of these was Walt Disney’s earliest theatrical animation short, Steamboat Willie. It also includes various curious odds and ends, as well as certified classics, such as the Peter Pan play, Charlie Chaplin film The Circus, and a song called the Wolverine Blues.
The Verge covered this landmark date in copyright history, but what is relevant in this story is Mickey Mouse himself. Steamboat Willie was the first time the world met Mickey Mouse, so this was the earliest path to making the character public domain.
However, Mickey’s public domain status comes with a caveat, because Disney filed a trademark for Mickey Mouse’s likeness. To sum it all up, the only version of Mickey Mouse that is public domain is the version that appeared in the Steamboat Willie cartoon.
But of course, that means everyone can just make their Mickey Mouse media now. They can make Mickey Mouse shorts, cartoons, animations, and of course, video games.
Game studio Herosoft was well ahead of everyone else as they prepared well in advance of this day, and they already made Mickey Mouse playable in their own game!
Herosoft’s game, funnily enough, is called Inverse Ninjas Vs. The Public Domain. As you can guess, the other playable characters that arrived before the iconic mouse ears guy were Alice Liddel, Sherlock Holmes, Winnie the Pooh, and Sun Wukong.
As for the game itself, it’s a top-down multiplayer shooter where you fight the Inverse Ninjas, in what looks like a stripped down version of Vampire Survivors. Inverse Ninjas Vs. The Public Domain is in Early Access, so they may get as crazy as Vampire Survivors yet, unless they take it to a new direction.
Characters going into the public domain means everyone gets to do what they want with it, for good or bad. There’s no guarantee these characters will be made in good media, but on a certain level, it’s good that they’re available at all. There’s no one stopping creators from creating their own OCs inspired by other copyrighted characters, so this is not about creators running out of ideas.
Using public domain characters is about keeping these characters relevant, and in that way, immortal. Not every public domain character has stayed popular or is even remembered today, so there really is something special to the characters that do stick around, regardless of their copyright status.
We may see an explosion of Mickey Mouse video games for the year, but in the meantime, you can check out Inverse Ninjas Vs. The Public Domain‘s Steam page here and the official announcement trailer below.
